Song structure

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IMHO there is room for impressionistic lyrics as well as more concrete lyrics in rock (broadly defined) music. Smashing Pumpkin's music is itself impressionistic and emotional rather than following traditional ideas of melody and harmony, so his lyrics go with the music in that way. In contrast, you couldn't make a country song with lyrics like that; the audience would get pissed off and throw things at you.

I would go a step further with Smashing Pumpkins and similar stuff: the lyrics are mostly irrelevant unless you are already a fan and willing to read them or listen to the song over and over again. You really can't make them out from one or two listens. So if you're willing to invest in this guy's meanderings you'll end up assigning a meaning, or at least a feeling, to it that you like that may or may not have anything to do with what he intended to say (if anything). That's okay, but please don't compare it to early Dylan lyrics, which do have meaning and depth standing on their own. Dylan's lyrics are literate and Smashing Pumpkin's are not.

As a basically unknown singer-songwriter, I don't feel like I have the luxury of throwing out stuff that can't be understood. Sometimes I write stuff that requires the listener to think and interpret, but I want it to have some meaning that can be agreed upon. I feel like I have to earn the right to have people listen carefully.
 
Couldn't agree with you more LI Slim on all your points. The pupmkins style of lyrics wouldnt work for every style of music, or atleast it wouldnt be accepted by styles of music such as country where most (or all) songs are very litteral. I think that Billy's style is refrshing even in the alternative/rock scene (although not the only person to use this style i'll admit).
Quite frankly i still dont understand the meaning of hlaf of the Pumpkin's songs. I think Billy enjoys being crytic and likes to kep his emotions to himself as much as possible.
I think its just a nice having to decide what meaning you take from a song rather than being told because it can make the song much more personal. I dont think because the lyrics are harder to understand it neccesaraly mean there is less meaning than say a Dylan song, its just that you cant always be sure if there is meaning. I'm sure not all Dylan lyrics are completely literal. Being cryptic can force someone to realy listen to what is being said and try to understand it rather than just listening to the words, something i think Dylan does well being relative literal bu Billy Corgan does just as well with his own method.
The Pumkins early stuff (from when they were unknown) are still very cryptic and i think if you have the tallen it wont have much of an adverse effect.
Finaly i'm not suggesting that everyone should write in the style of Billy Corgan but that it is refreshing and i think music could do with some more of it.
 
I just browsed through these replies...didn't read them that closely...but, I can speak as one of those idiots who fell (falls) into the trap of structure...actually, I shouldn't say idiots...there are some real geniuses when it comes to lyric (and composition) structure. I challenge ANYONE to write a song as perfect and complete as, say, "Every Breath You Take," and yet, when many of us hear it we think: "shit, hooky, but come one...how hard is that!?" Well, it's actually very very hard.

Charles Bukowski is my favorite writer. He prefaced a book once by saying something like, if you want puncuation, proper english, a story line, you've come to the wrong place. As a result, he deeply moved poeple who could relate (like me), and never touched others.

Personally (and I hold this as a high truth) the great ones managed both. Cliche here, but: Lucy in the Sky...??? Strawberry Fields...??? You don't have to like The Beatles to see how they wove wierd, abstract lyrical shit into songs that 40 year old housewives and 14 year old boys walked around singing, not knowing what the hell they were signing, and yet somehow relating to it in their own way.

Billy Corgan seems to be a popular theme in this thread. When I first heard Smashing...I was under contract with Sony, writing 3 minute, shit, bubble-gum pop songs, trying like crazy to sneak in Shakespeare lines and themes...PRETENTIOUS!!!

Smashing Pumpkins are like Nirvana, you just TRUST that what they're saying has meaning, and you find your own meaning somewhere in the energy of it all. Deftones, Tool, Perfect Cirlce...they sometimes move me to tears, and usually (always?) to chills, and I have no fucking idea what they're talking about. As a lover of all music, I also listen to Brooks & Dunn, and find nice, relatable story lines with strong melodies.

Avoid pretention. Trust your audience. If you don't trust them, they won't trust you. If they want cohesive, unchallenging lyrics and understandable story lines, trust them to find that on their Sting, Billy Joel, and Blink 182 albums. If they want energy or vibe or lyrics to challenge them and make them think about what the hell you just said, they'll revert back to you. I grew up listening to Johnny Cash, Rush, Shawn Cassidy, Aerosmith, Kiss, Captain & Tenille, AC/DC, The Police, Black Flag, Yes, Scorpions, Johnny Mathis, Johnny Rotten, Conway Twitty, Debbie Boone, Krokus, U2, Antrhax...all of them back to back, popping the vinyl on and off the turntable and the cassettes wore out quick, too...every one of them brought something different to the plate. Music is so huge and universal, there is no rule...BUT...the simpler in "mind" something is, the larger the potential audience.
 
I'm a big fan of Billy Corgan's writing, though I'm not a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins, or a whole lot of the other music played on the radio these days. Nonetheless, Corgan is a good writer and worth studying. One thing that troubled me in reading this thread is that there seems to be a lot of intellectualizing (which is a fun way to pass the time) about a discipline which must be done consistently and often in order to be any good. Anybody can, with some effort, sit down and write lyrics, if we accept the maxim that neither structure nor meter have any relevance to lyric writing. I agree that traditonal songwriting structures and rules are made to be bent, if not blown to smithereens, but you better make sure that your composing the music for such lyrics. Because I promise you that no publishing company or record label is going to waste their time trying to find you a composer to work with. If you can do it all, go ahead and make music, but if you're a non-performing lyricist looking to get a publishing deal you might as well use those lyric sheets for wallpaper.

I use all sorts of different structures in writing, but I try to use something if I want to see it go any further than my filing cabinet. As far as songs consisting of nonsensical syllables put to music, it's fairly old hat and a respected musical form called scat. Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald were quite adept at it.
 
Getting back to the Dylan and Corgan thing, I dig em both. If anybody's going to call Dylan the "literal" one of the bunch, check out what I think is one of his best song lyrics-- I've listened to it a thousand times and still learned from it. And that's the point...

are you making music to be heard a thousand times by one person or to be heard once by a thousand people? That's the difference between an artist musician and a career musician.

If you're a career musicians you might tend to think of lyric writing with a goal in mind: how do I hook the listener in?

Billy Corgan's Mayonaise, one of my favorite songs, paints a picture, it doesn't tell a story necessarily. Songs that tell linear, simple stories and are too easy to figure out are boring after a few listens. Songs that are intangible but thoughtful stay alive after a thousand listens. Once you "figure out" the lyrics completely the song is dead, it is dead. Here's a song that is still alive for me after who knows how many listens:

Dylan's "It's Alright I'm Only Bleeding"

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
 
literate, not literal

Hey Chip, I said Dylan was "literate" and Corgan is not. It's not that his songs can all be taken literally. But all Dylan's songs come from a place of literature, where he's part of a history of poets (as, of course, his pen name illustrates), and utilize such things as imagery and metaphor to express abstract thoughts. I don't think Corgan thinks about things like that. I think he spits out whatever comes to mind.
 
LI Slim said:
I would go a step further with Smashing Pumpkins and similar stuff: the lyrics are mostly irrelevant unless you are already a fan and willing to read them or listen to the song over and over again. You really can't make them out from one or two listens. So if you're willing to invest in this guy's meanderings you'll end up assigning a meaning, or at least a feeling, to it that you like that may or may not have anything to do with what he intended to say (if anything). That's okay, but please don't compare it to early Dylan lyrics, which do have meaning and depth standing on their own. Dylan's lyrics are literate and Smashing Pumpkin's are not.

As a basically unknown singer-songwriter, I don't feel like I have the luxury of throwing out stuff that can't be understood. Sometimes I write stuff that requires the listener to think and interpret, but I want it to have some meaning that can be agreed upon. I feel like I have to earn the right to have people listen carefully.
Click to expand...

You're right about the literal/literate distinction, I was wrong. However, if being wrong gives me an excuse to post vintage Dylan passages, then I don't want to be right...

Also, I agree Corgan isn't in the category of Dylan, but honestly, who is? It's not really fair to compare anyone to Dylan if you ask me, aside from maybe Leonard Cohen.... who else? If anybody else knows of any genuinely poetic songwriters, I would DEFINITELY be interested.

I think it's dangerous to start catering to the listener in trying to write songs that will be understood after one or two listens... none of the songs that I can think of as great songs or even decent songs are figure-outable in the first one or two listens... but I guess if you're a professional you got to do what you gotta do to survive... I'm sure dylan never wrote a song to be figured out in the first one or two listens.
 
Time is the ultimate judge of an artist's work. Mr. Corgan's work is stoned out freestyling. The product of a well lubricated mind.

If you create any work of art, it is the ability of that work to connect with others that brings the greatest rewards, and for most performers or artists that is the "STUFF" the "MAGIC" the "ULTIMATE HIGH" and how you get there probably doesn't matter, but how long you will stay there does.

Write from the heart when in doubt and if you want to write from the mind maybe you should be a philosopher. Don't take that to mean that I think finding some way of expressing yourself in new or different terms is something to not work for, Frank Zappa had his own style and way with words that at times I thought were coming from somewhere beyond the known universe when I first listened to them, and maybe that is the case for Mr. Corgan, you have to keep it in context.

But when it comes down to it, if he is working, selling records, found his place and is happy with his gig, does it really matter how he does it? Unless you just want to copy his style.

For me, I think I'll just be myself, do what I do, and wait and see how lyrics like Mr. Corgan's hold up to the test of time.

Keep the faith, the Ozlee:cool:
 
Well this seems to have opened a whole can of worms :). What i was originaly getting at is that i found corgans style was refreshing in a world over very literal lyrics. And the type of music i was getting at for being too literal was ... Pop music. Im sure nobody here would disagree. Im not saying Corgan is better than Dylan or vise verser. They are both good and have different styles and so are both good in different ways. I'm just saying that commercial music is wrong and evil :D
And i agree Ozlee you should write what comes naturaly. Ive sort of started being a little less literaly but its still comming from me. I think if you try to write in one style or another, in most caes, it just sounds wrong.
 
Hey, Chippedeggtooth---Check this out!!!!!!

chippedeggtooth said:

It's not really fair to compare anyone to Dylan if you ask me, aside from maybe Leonard Cohen.... who else? If anybody else knows of any genuinely poetic songwriters, I would DEFINITELY be interested.

Click to expand...

Have you heard of The Tragically Hip? Great band. I'm Canadian (and so are they) so we hear them a lot, but I know that over in the U.S. they are virtually unknown. The lead singer , Gordon Downie, writes some amazing lyrics----really wild stream-of-conscious stuff. We even studied some of his work in University. He released a book of his poetry a couple of years ago here in Canada, and it got some great reviews in very respected literary circles. So, Gordon Downie has definitely entered the literary canon of great Canadian post-modern poets, and he is in great company: Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Timothy Findley just to name a few big names.
 
thanks so much for the recommendation, I'll definitely be checking out the Tragically Hip, I had no idea they were poetic, I just heard a couple people say they liked them a while ago but I haven't checked them out.... I'll have to do a little downloading tonight. Thanks again Vox71.
 
chippedeggtooth said:


If anybody else knows of any genuinely poetic songwriters, I would DEFINITELY be interested.
Click to expand...

Check out a guy that goes by the name Sage Francis. He's amazing
 
Hmm, interesting thread. I find it easier to write a short story, and then break it down into lines, form verse and choruses from the source short story. At least I have reference material. I guess this rules out the abstract possibilities though. I agree though that abstract is cool, because it does allow the end listener to invent their own meaning of the song.
 
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